Rancho Buena Ventura
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Rancho Buena Ventura (also called "San Buena Ventura") was a
Mexican land grant In Alta California (now known as California) and Baja California, ranchos were concessions and land grants made by the Spanish and Mexican governments from 1775 to 1846. The Spanish concessions of land were made to retired soldiers as an indu ...
in present-day
Shasta County, California Shasta County (), officially the County of Shasta, is a County (United States), county located in the Northern California, northern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population is 182,155 as of the 2020 census, up from 177,223 from t ...
, given in 1844 by Governor
Manuel Micheltorena Joseph Manuel María Joaquin Micheltorena y Llano (8 June 1804 – 7 September 1853) was a brigadier general and adjutant-general of the Mexican Army, List_of_governors_of_California_before_1850#Mexican_governors_of_California_(1837–47), gover ...
to Major
Pierson B. Reading Pierson Barton Reading (November 26, 1816 – May 29, 1868) (also referred to as Pearson, and as Parson) was a California pioneer. Life Reading was born in New Jersey. He came across country to California with Samuel J. Hensley as a member of ...
(1816–1868). The land grant is named for the former name of the adjacent
Sacramento River The Sacramento River () is the principal river of Northern California in the United States and is the largest river in California. Rising in the Klamath Mountains, the river flows south for before reaching the Sacramento–San Joaquin River D ...
, Buena Ventura, which meant good fortune in Spanish. The grant extended some nineteen miles on the west side of the Sacramento River, from Cottonwood Creek on the south to Salt Creek on the north, and extended approximately three miles west of the Sacramento River the length of the grant. The grant encompassed present day towns of Anderson, Cottonwood and Redding. This was the northernmost land grant in California; the smaller Rancho Breisgau faced the southernmost portion of the Rancho on the east bank of the river. Redding, however, was not named for Major Reading; it was named for B. B. Redding, a land agent for the
Central Pacific Railroad The Central Pacific Railroad (CPRR) was a rail company chartered by U.S. Congress in 1862 to build a railroad eastwards from Sacramento, California, to complete most of the western part of the "First transcontinental railroad" in North Americ ...
.


History

Governor Micheltorena and
John Sutter John Augustus Sutter (February 23, 1803 – June 18, 1880), born Johann August Sutter and known in Spanish as Don Juan Sutter, was a Switzerland, Swiss immigrant who became a Mexican and later an American citizen, known for establishing Sutter ...
, his alcalde, granted Rancho Buena Ventura to Pierson B. Reading (listed as Pearson B. Reading in the land case documents) in 1844. Reading, who was at that time working for John Sutter at
Sutter's Fort Sutter's Fort was a 19th-century agricultural and trade colony in the Mexican ''Alta California'' province. Established in 1839, the site of the fort was originally part of a utopian colonial project called New Helvetia (''New Switzerland'') ...
in
Sacramento Sacramento ( or ; ; ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the seat of Sacramento County. Located at the confluence of the Sacramento and American Rivers in Northern California's Sacramento Valley, Sacramento's 2020 p ...
as a clerk and trapper, visited the land grant but did not move onto it. He stocked the land with cattle and built a house for his overseer but it was burned down by
natives There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...
in 1846. Reading was active in promoting the
Bear Flag Revolt The California Republic, or Bear Flag Republic, was an List of historical unrecognized states#Americas, unrecognized breakaway state from Second Federal Republic of Mexico, Mexico, that existed from June 14, 1846 to July 9, 1846. It milita ...
of 1846. After serving as an artillery lieutenant then as paymaster at the rank of major in a battalion led by
John C. Frémont Major general (United States), Major-General John Charles Frémont (January 21, 1813July 13, 1890) was a United States Army officer, explorer, and politician. He was a United States senator from California and was the first History of the Repub ...
, he built a permanent adobe dwelling and settled on his grant in 1847. He became the second (after
Lansford Hastings Lansford Warren Hastings (1819–1870) was an American explorer and Confederate soldier. He is best remembered as the developer of Hastings Cutoff, a claimed shortcut to California across what is now the state of Utah, a factor in the ill-fated ...
) permanent settler of what was to become Shasta County. With the
cession The act of cession is the assignment of property to another entity. In international law it commonly refers to land transferred by treaty. Ballentine's Law Dictionary defines cession as "a surrender; a giving up; a relinquishment of jurisdicti ...
of California to the United States following the
Mexican-American War Mexican Americans are Americans of full or partial Mexican descent. In 2022, Mexican Americans comprised 11.2% of the US population and 58.9% of all Hispanic and Latino Americans. In 2019, 71% of Mexican Americans were born in the United State ...
, the 1848
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo officially ended the Mexican–American War (1846–1848). It was signed on 2 February 1848 in the town of Villa de Guadalupe, Mexico City, Guadalupe Hidalgo. After the defeat of its army and the fall of the cap ...
provided that the land grants would be honored. As required by the Land Act of 1851, a claim for Rancho Buena Ventura was filed with the
Public Land Commission The California Land Act of 1851 (), enacted following the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the admission of California as a state in 1850, established the California State Lands Commission to determine the validity of prior Spanish and Mexican l ...
in 1852. The US appealed the claim on the grounds that Reading was not a Mexican citizen. In 1854 Reading went to
Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
for the hearing before the
US Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all Federal tribunals in the United States, U.S. federal court cases, and over Stat ...
on his land grant claims. There he met and married Fanny Wallace Washington. The claim was upheld by the Supreme Court The United States v. Pearson B Reading, 59 US 1, 1855
/ref> and the grant was
patented A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
to Pearson B. Reading in 1857. The first land sale was made in 1853. By 1866, over of the land grant was sold. In 1866, Reading borrowed from the estate of his longtime friend Samuel J. Hensley, using the remaining rancho lands as collateral. After Reading's unexpected death in 1868, the remaining rancho lands were sold to
James Ben Ali Haggin James Ben Ali Haggin (December 9, 1822 – September 12, 1914) was an American attorney, rancher, investor, art collector, and a major owner and breeder in the sport of Thoroughbred horse racing. Haggin made a fortune in the aftermath of the C ...
at public auction in 1871 to satisfy the unpaid debt. Paul W. Gates, 2002, ''Land and Law in California: Essays on Land Policies'', Purdue University Press, After the auction, the only remaining land from the original land grant was the one square mile () Washington section purchased by Fanny Washington's mother.


References

{{California history Buena Ventura Ranchos of Shasta County, California